


life debt

by steeringwheeleater



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29966691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeringwheeleater/pseuds/steeringwheeleater
Summary: what if nureyev's debt is less of a debt and more just, flat-out extortion. with a twist.or: new kinshasa called, they want you back
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko & Peter Nureyev, Mag & Peter Nureyev, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. taunt and repeat

**Author's Note:**

> dont have a ton of warnings for this one atm. im still working things out. when i get warnings they'll be up here. got notes down below too ✌✌

His comms ring while he's carrying out his nightly rituals. He's holding the comms in his hand, running his fingers over all of the buttons, confirming that it is on and that everything on it is where he left it. The three taps that mark the end of the ritual are left unfinished as his index finger stalls in the air while it rings. It's late; he's picked up the unfortunate habit of going to sleep quite late since boarding the Carte Blanche, so to be getting a call at this hour is strange. He isn't in the habit of handing out his comms code. He can't for the life of him imagine who could be calling him. 

When he looks at the incoming comms code something like an instinct, the quivering of the rabbit hiding from the fox, hits his system and he is frozen in place. 

The comms rings again and he pulls his legs up onto the bed, like opening this door might allow something to pull him under and like his best defense is to keep himself very contained, and he steels himself, and he answers the call. 

" _Three rings is unusual, Nureyev. I sincerely hope I didn't wake you._ " 

August Kivi is the head of security on New Kinshasa-- hired to replace the replacement of Miss Rossignol after her grievous oversight --and she is anything but sincere. Her voice is apathetic at best, but he hears the hostility lingering behind it. The fox with her hot breath on his shivering shoulders. 

Nureyev answers. He says, "Not at all. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?" 

" _Well, I haven't heard from you in a while. I was starting to worry you'd forgotten about me. About_ us _._ " 

"I could never forget that." He says quickly, and August laughs down the line. 

" _It's been a while since you've sent me room and board. Racking up quite a lot of interest._ " 

And of course he is. Between the price she set by the day and the exorbitant interest rate, his last payment had barely covered a month's worth of the debt. "I'll transfer what I have to you in the morning. We haven't fenced our last score yet, but it won't be long until we do."

Still, it isn't as if he can stop paying. Even if the fiscal cost has never been the point of this charade Nureyev's failure to comply will have consequences he will not consider. He buries his face in the palm of his hand and tries to dispel the thought. He knows it won't be leaving him at all tonight. 

August hums, feigning interest. Mocking him. " _You sound tired, Nureyev. Are your criminal associates really running you so ragged? You should take a day off! Come visit us!_ " 

To that he laughs. It's no more than a scoff, but he's sure that August understands his meaning. "Now, you know I can't afford that." 

" _Oh, I do. But I'm worried about you, Nureyev! What will Mag do if you work yourself to death before you can pay off all of this debt?_ " It's apparent now that she didn't like his tone. August knows that he gets twitchy when she calls Mag by name. In doing so she forces him to think about the long parade of elephants in the room. He raises his head and feels acutely that those elephants are climbing the ladder of his spine, and they're going to crush him. " _He's been a perfect tenant, and it would be a shame to lose him after all of this fuss._ " 

His words are starting to run together, frustratingly and audibly desperate to get this over with, but he says, "The less I work, Miss Kivi, the less money I can send." 

" _That is true. Still, it would be so good to see you. And so easy! We could negotiate your deal in person and you could stop wasting all of this_ time _and_ energy!" 

No doubt that if Nureyev were to take her up on her offer he would be shot before he could step out of the ship he arrived in. She's milking him for a profit but she doesn't want him, she doesn't want Mag. She wants Peter Nureyev dead. Mag is only a lure. 

They've been trapped in this stalemate for years. Since her team had tracked him down, managed to pass him a message through an account that has long since been quarantined. 

"I'll send what I have in the morning." He says now more firmly. Firm to press, though watery around the edges like he's still recovering himself. 

August sighs as if she's feeling very put-upon, and she says, " _Alright, alright. You know what you're doing. You understand why, and I don't need to play with you._ " 

"I understand." He holds back his sigh of relief. August doesn't need to hear it. He'll let it out when he ends the call.

" _He's been asking to speak to you._ " 

He's been asking to speak to Nureyev for months now. They've spoken once or twice, but something hideous eats its way through Nureyev every time; a guilt that won't be relieved just because Mag is alive, and only gnaws more viciously when Mag tells Nureyev-- always, telling Nureyev --that he is forgiven. He can't do that right now. He can't play the repentant son; he can't talk to the man he killed like all of this isn't hanging over them. 

All he can do is pay August Kivi until he finds a way to get Mag out of New Kinshasa. 

Hopefully when he obtains the curemother prime, its price will offset how much she and her associates hate them both. 

He can't speak to Mag. "Tell him that I'm sorry; I'm just too busy with the crew. The heist." When they're free of this... then they can speak.

August makes a sound like admonishment and he can hear her begin to rap her fingers against her desk. " _That's a poor answer for the man who raised you, Nureyev. I'll pass it along. Maybe I'll even manage to make it sound convincing._ " 

"It's all I ask." He repeats, "I'll send what I have in the morning." 

" _I'm already on the edge of my seat._ " 

The call ends after that. August hangs up first, and he drops his comms onto the bed beside him to more effectively hold his head in his hands. 

They only need to hold on a little bit longer. 


	2. echo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no warnings for this one either, unless you count petey's id thing? i don't myself, and im not writing it as dissociation as in associated with MI, but he still isn't quite connecting with any single identity in this chapter. 
> 
> some other characters are in here, though! uh sorry to rita who just has not appeared yet.

It's a relief that his basic needs are covered while he lives on this ship, he finds himself thinking, with these people. He watches the creds drain out of his account until it's entirely empty and feels a bit hollow, himself. In the past he's kept hundreds from her at a time to cover the expenses of travel, disguise, and theft, but here on the Carte Blanche he is housed, he is moving, and he is fed. He thinks that he should feel that relief more strongly than he does, but instead it feels almost  _ wrong _ to be comfortable after so long without the guarantee of these comforts. 

It's difficult to understand. 

No, perhaps the understanding is not the problem. He might be able to explain the disconnect if he's asked, but his inability to shake that wrongness makes him feel helpless which makes him feel… 

But he doesn't need to feel comfortable. In fact, it will be better if he doesn't, if all goes to plan. With the curemother prime in hand and the Aurinko crime family furious at his back, it isn't as if he will have these resources again. Perhaps with Mag things will be different, but he won't delude himself into thinking that a couple of wanted men will ever find this sort of peace again. 

Time passes. Scores are fenced, cons are run, creds are made and spent and squirreled away. He pays August Kivi in increments, large sums that don't make a dent in his debts. For days following each payment or comms call he finds it difficult to look his crew in the eye, on the off-chance somebody should see through the facade to the crumbling interior. 

It's easier on some days. When he has nothing to give her, he can put August out of his mind entirely. When he is distracted he doesn't think about Mag, about New Kinshasa, or about the dread of any possible outcome. 

Juno Steel distracts him often. He thinks sometimes that Juno can strip away the paint he's brushed on and tell him his secrets the way he'd let Juno before, and he doesn't know if he wants to be so open now. He finds himself at once relieved and disappointed when Juno sees his tired face all made-up in the morning before breakfast and asks no questions. It saves him the trouble of having to lie to this person he's loved so fondly, but it likewise gives him the ability to deny Juno the truth. 

Juno values his family. Can he say the same? 

Mag has spent more than twenty years on New Kinshasa, and Peter won't even speak to him. 

How do you tell the righteous love of your life that you stabbed your father to death in a red room on a vicious satellite and that he's come back to tell you he isn't angry? How does that segway into the woman holding him over your head like a shoe that's about to drop? 

If your name is ever Peter Nureyev, you don't. 

He sits on the end of your bed and bares his heart to you and you don't say a word about it. 

Nureyev tells Juno other things-- his most incredible stories, his favorite songs and the way he fashions himself after romantic heroes --but he keeps this to himself. He thinks to mention it once or twice, and even finds he's presented with the perfect opportunity to do so, but he doesn't say it. Juno doesn't need to know. There's nothing he can do. He won't put Juno in that position, won't force him to choose between him and the Aurinkos. He certainly won't put Juno in those laser sights. 

Juno is a good distraction, but distractions don't so much as delay the inevitable, and sometimes something so solidly reminds him of his debt that he can hardly think of anything else. 

Buddy sits in a cracking leather chair catty-corner to his own, and both sit before a desk plastered with so much marble-patterned linoleum that it puts the bathroom on the Carte Blanche to shame. He and the captain had shared a glance before their host arrived that said as much, and nice as it was its short-lived vindication could not carry him through the rest of their heist. 

The man who walks into the room-- having let them stew awhile to impart on them how important he considers himself --is named Solar Supersonic, after his own mechanical engineering firm. He is every bit the blowhard they expected him to be, opening with a casual greeting, "Your family wants to do business with my family." 

Johanna and Hieronymus Price are bold Outer Rim inventors, looking to patent luxury transforming ships. They believe that Solar Supersonic is  _ the _ firm to make their ships a reality, but they aren't married to the idea if Solar Supersonic is unwilling or unable to meet their particular demands. In other words, he and Buddy will be testing the limits of this man's patience. What they say doesn't matter so long as it keeps Mister Supersonic's attention in this room and off of his security office where one individual is asleep at their desk and the radio frequency through which his personnel communicate is being interrupted.

"This is correct. My son and I are very interested in what you do here, and what you can do with our help." Buddy crosses one leg over the other and the knife-sharp heel of her shoe catches the light. "Luckily, we seem to have fallen right into your lap." 

During rehearsal he and Buddy had settled on a negotiation like a game of table tennis; fast-paced and irregular. Don't give him room to breathe or question. If you can't play off of your target, play off of each-other. He's done it before to great success. 

In practice now, however, it strikes him as distinctly unsettling. 

He doesn't speak. Supersonic speaks instead. "Luckily indeed. I'm told you and your son have designed a ship that expands and contracts depending on its location?" 

"And the needs of its driver, of course." Buddy adds. 

Hieronymus now says, "As well as the needs of the void or the roadway its driver is traversing." 

"As a ship, or as a car." Buddy.

"The  _ Anyfar _ ." Hieronymus. 

It's a testament to Buddy's skill that she maintains her composure. They've spent days laughing at the name over their plans, and he's been on the receiving end of threats for his part in deciding it.

It is this that snaps him out of his own head and into his role as Hieronymus Price, this flicker of personality. 

The con is not the same. 

Supersonic is not immediately sold. He asks about the mechanics. Hieronymus and Johanna argue about the leaps in technological understanding between the  _ Anyfar _ and the technologies employed by Solar Supersonic. The man himself hardly gets a word in edgewise, now. Hieronymus tells him in plain, perfectly nonsensical terms that the ship is hollow and ball-jointed, collapsible, like a telescope. Johanna tells him that the windows appear crystalline, and can fold like an accordion. When asked to see the plans and concept sketches Hieronymus first tells Supersonic that they exist in his mind in perfect clarity and that he can simply describe any detail Supersonic desires, and Johanna asserts that Supersonic can't see the sketches before an agreement is reached, in case he decides to cut them out of the deal and produce Price ships in his own name. 

"Nobody will sign a contract until they see your plans." Solar Supersonic insists.

"We beg to differ." They say in unison, and it feels fantastic. 

And then he feels the vibration of a comms in his front pocket and he knows that it is done. Across the compound Vespa and Juno are escaping with the blade, and in a minute he and Buddy will make their exit at their heels. 

"What do you say, Mr. Supersonic?" He asks.

"Will you take a leap with us into galactic history, Mr. Supersonic?" Buddy asks. 

Solar Supersonic is flustered for a moment, his mouth falling open and slapping shut like a fish out of water, but when he settles his mouth is closed and his brow is knit, and his face is all red. 

"You are  _ wasting my time! _ " He bellows. 

Buddy springs up from her chair and it squeals in ancient protest. " _ Oh! _ Well, I never!" 

Her gasp is so artificial Nureyev can't help but laugh. He jumps to his own feet and says, "After we offered you our opus!" 

"Well, we'll just have to see who will sign a contract on our terms!" Buddy sweeps towards the door. Her arm waves over her shoulder like a leisurely flag more than any shaking fist. 

"The chance of a lifetime! I would never have thought!" He follows her out. 

The door shuts behind them. Solar Supersonic does not follow, and they do not run until they turn the corner. It's a race of clacking heels and stifled laughter against the clock until they breeze past the receptionist and out the door onto the street. 

"And nobody followed us?" He asks a bit breathlessly. 

Buddy is a bit out of breath herself, but she answers while they walk, "I don't think they would want to try, Pete." 

He laughs, "And nobody's found that guard yet? Very lax security." 

"The blade is better off with us, really." 

For a moment it feels so much like it did back then; the packed city street and somebody to follow through it. Somebody he respects. She looks nothing like him. It isn't like he hasn't drawn the comparison before. When she senses his eyes on her cheek she turns and he pretends that he hasn't been watching her at all. 

They trudge on down three more city blocks before they even catch sight of the car. It's not the car itself that attracts their attention so much as the fact that Juno's been locked outside of it and is tugging futilely at the handle. He almost pulls the door off its hinges when Jet sees them coming and unlocks the car. 

"'About time," Vespa drones from the passenger seat. She has her knee up on the glovebox and he can tell that she's got the blade in there. 

"Thank you for waiting." Buddy slips into the back seat behind him after he follows Juno inside. She throws her head back and Jet starts to drive. 

Juno leans in towards his shoulder and he tips his head to bring his ear closer to Juno's mouth. It may not be a secret, but he doesn't want to turn his head. 

Juno asks, "How'd it go?" 

He answers, "Easy as it gets." 

"It's just that… you look a little spaced out." 

He answers, "It's nothing. I'm tired." 

"Oh." 

Juno doesn't herd him onto his shoulder, but he leans back to offer the space. He doesn't resist. 

He doesn't believe that Buddy would do what Mag has done. He doesn't believe that Buddy would do what Mag has done, but he didn't believe that Mag would do it either. 

Regardless, he thinks, and he swallows, and he thinks: history may repeat itself in other ways. 

Peter may do what he did all of those years ago again. He may do it to her. He might convince himself, again, that he has to. 

He sits up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it doesn't matter but i want you to know that solar supersonic's entire family is named solar supersonic-- parents, kids. except for his wife, whose name is portia, because they have the entire family brain.


	3. forced back down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a good bit of the ol' anxiety in this chapter but it's not extreme? 
> 
> phone calls with mag !

“ _ I missed the sound of your voice. _ ” 

He sits hunched over his lap on the bed, feeling queasy. He’s agreed to speak to Mag on some weak little impulse-- the part of him that still wants to be told that everything will be fine when it feels less likely every day, the one that won’t take ‘ _ no _ ’ for an answer when he tells it that its father can’t fix it --and now he needs to deal with the consequences. He needs to _ speak to Mag _ . It’s horrifying. 

Peter missed the sound of Mag’s voice, too. 

“I’m sorry it’s been so long.” Peter responds evenly. He doesn’t know how to reprimand Mag for waiting to hear from him without making it obvious exactly why he’s been avoiding it. Mag doesn’t deserve his bitterness, after everything. He is the sole recipient of his own guilt. 

“ _ I hear that  _ Buddy Aurinko _ ’s been keeping you busy. _ ” Mag sounds proud. A little sad, but mostly proud. 

“Yes,” He says, and despite himself the corner of his mouth turns up in a smile. He’s also quite proud of himself for that, even if conditions are less than ideal. Even if just how busy is exaggerated to avoid talking to Mag, and so obviously that it was no doubt Mag could tell. “So busy, in fact, that I’m afraid I’ve hurt myself.” 

And Mag is being a very good sport about it. “ _ Well, it can’t be too bad! _ ” Mag laughs, “ _ You don’t sound half as crabby as you did after you broke your arm jumping out that ambassador’s window. _ ” 

“You were meant to catch me.”

“You  _ were meant to fall straight down. _ ” 

“What is that phrase you used to use? ‘A stiff wind could bowl you over, Peter.’” 

Another part of him, the part of him that opposes the quivering wound that is Peter Nureyev, and the one that will exhaust itself holding shut doors that it made itself, has been resisting taking comfort during this comms call. It’s been forcing its way up Nureyev’s throat while he talks and while he listens to Mag talk because Nureyev doesn’t believe that he can have what they had back. It doesn’t want to entertain the idea, just in case Nureyev should get attached to it. Still, over the course of the call even this part has become still. Mag has been talking to him like absolutely nothing has changed, and even if Nureyev knows this to be untrue he can’t help but still listening to that voice. 

“ _ It’s not a literal phrase, Peter, and I know you know that. _ ” The fond exasperation in Mag’s tone is so familiar, and somehow it feels a lifetime away. “ _ And it’s not my fault you have frog legs, either. _ ” 

He actually looks down the bed at his legs when he argues, “I do not.” 

“ _ Well, your grasp of idioms has never been your strength-- _ ” 

“The legs!” This Peter almost whines, and he catches himself before he raises his voice. 

Mag is laughing again. Of course he knew what he was doing. Peter raises a hand to his forehead, feeling foolish. Feeling childish, feeling pleasant. Feeling ill, when he recognizes how comfortable he’s become. This is wrong.

Even if Mag forgives him, which Mag has insisted during every conversation since August Kivi re-connected them, neither will be able to forget what Peter did. For his part, Peter has never successfully held Mag’s plan against him. He can never know how much Mag is simply pretending to forgive. 

He doesn’t know that he will ever see the broad arc of Mag’s shoulders without also seeing the knife he forced between them. 

And how deep are the wrinkles in his forehead, now? How much of his life has he lost to that place?

“ _ You sound healthy, Peter. It’s been a long time since you’ve sounded like this. _ ” 

And suddenly Nureyev doesn’t know how to respond. How has he sounded in the past? Why is Mag paying attention, and why does knowing that he is hurt? 

“We don’t call often enough for you to know how I sound.” Is what comes out of his mouth. 

“ _ Well, whose fault is that? _ ” 

“Mine. It’s my fault, but it’s still true.” 

“ _ Peter, I didn’t mean to snap. You’re just so stressed whenever we talk-- _ ”

“Well, whose fault is that?” 

He cuts Mag off, and his stomach drops when the silence stretches on between them. Mag doesn’t say anything, and Nureyev-- well, he doesn’t have the first idea what he should say.

He tries. “Mag, no, I didn’t-- I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m…  _ stressed _ .” 

Another beat where nothing is said at all. He can’t hear so much as the rustle of fabric or the shifting of a hand over the receiver on the other end of the line, and he’s afraid that Mag must have hung up. 

“ _ Peter. _ ”

Surprised by Mag’s voice and all out of sorts, he doesn’t say anything. 

The heavy anticipation lacing his silence must prompt Mag on. “ _ You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve gotten myself out of scrapes before. Peter, I was pulling myself out of the traps of this administration since before you were born. I can manage it one more time. _ ” Or maybe it was a desperation to be heard that made him say it. The hope that if there was even a chance Peter was still listening, Mag might get through to him. 

Of course Peter was listening, but he didn’t like what he was hearing. 

“What are you saying?” He holds his comms now in both hands, poised between stiff, hooked fingers while he bends double over his legs. Only one bends up to meet him, the other heavy and casted. It bothers him, peripherally. He can’t hide himself, his face. He hangs like bait on a hook for the troubles of the world. 

“ _ You don’t owe me anything, Peter. I made this bed, and if I have to lie in it… well, then so be it. Don’t kill yourself over this. Please. _ ” 

Despite himself he hears his breath hitch, and he was sure Mag could hear it too. “Mag, I’m going to fix this.”

“ _ Please, Peter. _ ” 

“I can’t leave you like this!” 

Exasperated, Mag shouts: “ _ You can! _ ” 

He cringes, pulls his elbows in against his middle. 

Mag lowers his voice, now, softens the tone, and it’s strange to hear. Stranger, even, than joking with him had been. Peter can’t remember ever having heard Mag speak like this before. “ _ I lied to you. I was going to make you a murderer. I know you feel guilty, because you hurt me, but Peter, you didn’t kill me. You left me because I made a terrible mistake, and that was _ good.  _ You did the right thing. This is  _ my _ fault. You are  _ not  _ responsible. _ ” 

He can hear footsteps, two pairs, approaching Mag through the phone. Their time is up. Likely, Mag’s captors didn’t appreciate the ruckus. If they caught his words as well, they probably didn’t take too kindly to Mag telling their target to stay away. 

They will need to stay angry. Mag will protect Peter this time. The thought is enough to stall his voice in his throat and Nureyev can say nothing when he hears the comms change hands.

It is distant but he can hear it when it comes: “ _ I won’t hold this against you. _ ” 

The line goes dead. 

He is left alone, wretched and afraid, curled up on his bed and holding his comms like a lifeline. Mag won’t come back. Even if he gets a call, it will be from August. She’ll tell him what he wants to hear-- that Mag is fine --and what she needs him to hear-- that he won’t be if Nureyev backs out of their deal. 

And he’ll tell her that he’s not going anywhere. Of course he will. 

Twenty-two years ago, a young Peter Nureyev stabbed Mag in the back to save a city that hadn’t been anything but cruel to the both of them. He’d left Mag there to die. 

But Mag is alive. He can’t abandon him like that again.

**Author's Note:**

> YEAH.  
> anyway, FIRST of all: im referring to nureyev as 'he' much more than using his name in the next because it is from his perspective, and i view him as having a weird shaky sense of self. when i do use it, it's either to express the identity he is inhabiting in the moment or to distinguish him from mag, who also uses he/him. this is still fairly early in season 3, timeline-wise, so i think he hasn't come back to himself yet. let me know if this is just going to be annoying. i probably wont stop, but let me know.  
> SECOND: i headcanon petey as having ocd. it's going to happen in this fic but i'm not going to address it much because... it just is? if you have questions ig ask them. i do have a fic specifically addressing it in my drafts right now. 
> 
> k that's it. if you wanna talk shop i have a tumblr @onlyinthepasttense


End file.
